Returning to her life
by DrowinginRedInk
Summary: Now that he's dead, there's no reason to live as George Milton anymore. For better or for worse, I'll return to who I was back east. One shot. A different take on the basic concept of Amber Von Tussle's "Expression of Self" with their permission.


A gun, still buzzing in my hands. I'd been wondering how this all would end, but I hadn't wanted it to end like this. Not with a friend's body on the ground, still warm. But no, not a friend, not really. Now I'd be allowed to call him what he really was.

-

A woman's place is pretty simple. Wear dresses, get married, have babies. Talk nicely, smile sweetly. Be coarse, and you're a tart. Worse, a slut. I didn't need this incident to teach me what happens to them.

So when a man who wasn't quite right in the head started taking a liking to me, I had a choice to make. Do I ignore it, wait for his aunt to make him stop, let it come to an end all by itself... or do I take advantage? After all, I had to marry. That was clear. My family wouldn't let me be a mere spinster; they'd arrange my wedding if they had to. But marriage would hold me down, keep me still, leave me toiling away in kitchens, with children clinging to me all day and night. And here was the opportunity to wed a man who wouldn't know how to give us children. He could never boss me around, far from it. I was the one who'd be giving orders. Besides, being married off would surely help his aunt, and it'd make sure he was cared for until his death. So I made my offer, and though she was shocked, she accepted.

He was a wonder to see in a suit. I expected him to tear it off, but no. He stood still and stayed quiet, in front of a church full of people, no less. It was the one time he could have been mistaken for a sane man. And he was good all the way to his aunt's house, when I told both her and my parents my plans.

The way I framed it was delicately. Lennie could only be a good worker with someone by his side, and so we needed to go somewhere where either I, as a woman, would be allowed to make enough of a living to support the both of us, or somewhere where I would be allowed to help him. And so I proposed to them that the west might be lawless enough.

I was lucky in one regard, and one only. I had no figure to speak of. There was barely anything to hide, and so all it took was waiting until we were outside town limits to cut my hair and change out of my dress. I was short and narrow, sure, but I could pass. It wasn't hard with Lennie taking all the attention. I got more and more used to acting masculine on our long way west.

My first instruction to Lennie, as soon as I was dressed, was that my name was George and he couldn't call me anything else. The second was that I was his friend, not his wife, and not a lady. The third was an apology, not an instruction at all: my soft hair was gone, and he could never pet it again. For that I was truly sorry.

-

I doubt he remembered that I had been a lady when he died. I've nearly forgotten it, for that matter. My childhood feels like merely a story about someone else, my natural voice feels like a falsetto, and I don't know how well I could return to acting ladylike. I've snapped at Lennie too many times over the life I could have had without him, before remembering that my parents never would have let me leave the house without marrying. How well could I even have learned to fake it without him attracting enough attention to overshadow my mistakes? If I hadn't had him, there was no way I could have been anything other than a lady.

I have always wondered how long I'd keep pretending. I had grown used to masculinity, sure, but I could never get rid of the part of me that could not understand so many of men's habits and tics, that hated to walk so rigidly, that longed to wear something to flatter the slight figure I possessed. If we ever did get that little farm, perhaps I would have gone back. It's a question I won't be able to find the answer to anymore.

I never loved him as a husband. Though I had romantic feelings in me somewhere for other men, there were none for him. But I did love him as a friend, as a companion, as someone I'd agreed to stand with in sickness or in health, for richer or for poorer. I was tasked to take care of him. The reason why didn't matter anymore. Though it was platonic, I loved him more than most women probably loved their husbands. And now he was dead. At my hands, no less.

It was clear, looking at what my life had become, that there was no decision I was afraid of. If there was, why would I have agreed to marry such a man, or move out west with him, or live a false life for so many years? So there was no doubt in my mind that I should make the hard decision so that he would never have to suffer. Still, he was my husband, and he was gone. Just like that.

-

I knew what to do next. Get his death certificate and head back east. Pick up a few dresses at a general store, change in some abandoned shed where no one would ever notice that a man entered and a woman left. My arms had become bound in muscles, and my hair was cut so short that perhaps no one would believe me to be a woman at all. But perhaps they would. And surely, my family would still recognize me once I got all the way back home.

The life of a man had proved hard and joyless, day after day of toil for no clear gain. The life of a married woman still wasn't what I wanted, but now that I was older and had shed some of the restlessness of youth, perhaps if I remarried I'd find that life suited me more. It was a hard thing to be able to know until I was there. After all, I hadn't wanted Lennie for a husband or life under a different identity, either, and life in California had turned out alright.

So the next day, I entered an empty department store, armed with the savings Lennie and I had intended to use to build a new life. It would only buy mine, now, two dresses I told the clerk were for my girl, and a train ticket headed home. As I turned myself back into the woman I'd been so many years ago, I could only hope I could be happy when I was leaving George Milton behind me for good.


End file.
